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Interesting premise but ultimately left me unsatisfied. The characters were a little one-dimensional and the resolution too pat.
A unique cast of characters in an interesting situation, and I appreciate that it didn't go in a tidy, Hallmark-style overly sentimental direction.
Little Beauties, by Kim Addonizio is about three girls: Diana, Jamie, and Stella. The book starts off with Diana, who I presume as the main character. The first chapter is titled “Rule#1: Shower after emptying the trash.” The title reflects Diana’s weakness for germs. This chapter goes into detail about Diana’s childhood life, her mother, and how she is now thirty-four. Diana’s husband of twelve years, Tim, has just left her. In the first chapter Diana meets Jamie who comes into Teddy’s World, w...
I really wanted this book to be good. It showed promise in parts but the story never came together and just drifted along. The teenage mother, the OCD divorcee, and the newborn whose thoughts we are privy to are so disconnected its laughable. The only reason I didn’t give this book one star is that I finished it as I kept hoping for the best but kept getting the worst.
and to think i'll never get that time back that i spent reading about these selfish women. oh, and the voice of the baby, i can barely watch those supposedly precocious children miming their parents political thoughts, so the baby was pretty awful. i really should have read a cook book instead.
Not exactly what I expected. The writing seemed subpar for a novel. This is the first book by Addonizio I have ever read. I was not really impressed with the different narrations, especially when coming from the baby. I think I could have read the whole book and skipped over those sections and it would have not been missed. As fore the ending, it was way too open ended. I didn't feel there was anythign actually accomplished or portrayed at the end. A big let down.
I loved this book. It's a good story: a woman with an obsessive washing problem meets a pregnant teenager, and their unexpected friendship marks big changes ahead for both of them. Not the most original plot, but a good story, and written beautifully. From my little synopsis it might sound like another one of those novels for women that are all the same and all being churned out like crazy lately, but it's not that novel. It's written by Kim Addonizio. It's a novel by a poet. And the unborn chil...
Little Beauties by Kim Addonizio.Simon & Schuster, New York, 2005.“Rule #23: Clean anything you take to bed – book, laptop, phone (51).Homework: Confront the situations that cause you distress (119).Remember: Each time you view your experiences as a test, you set yourself up for disappointment, discouragement, self-criticism, and resignation (223).”Addonizio’s novel, “Little Beauties,” begins with an introduction to Diana McBride, the protagonist, who reveals in the first line of the piece that
A mercifully quick read. This is a story which revolves around characters which are damaged in various tedious and stereotypical ways. I wish I hadn't bothered to finish it, it never gets any better.
This book was tough to get through..."She is a wrinkly, bluish creature with spindly arms and a head like a misshapen potato. The nurse might be right. She might be the most beautiful thing."
Worst. Book. Ever.
This is a novel that shifts perspective between three interesting characters: a woman with a severe obsessive washing disorder, a teenage mother who is ambivalent about her condition, and the baby girl born of that teenager. It is an entertaining, involving book although I'm not sure what it is trying to say ... maybe nothing more than that a mother-daughter relationship is one to be cherished. No matter how dysfunctional it might be from time to time, the love is always there.
I thought this book was lovely. I was completely caught up it the trio of characters, especially loved hearing from the baby. I read it from cover to cover in a day.
Ugly Beauties.Little Beauties by Kim Addonizio. Simon & Schuster: 2005After reading a couple of Kim Addonizio’s works, the conclusion can be made that she likes to write about women who face many hardships in their lives. From Rita in her novel My Dreams Out in the Street to Jamie and Diana in Little Beauties, these women show their true strengths through the hardships that they face throughout a limited amount of time. In Little Beauties we see the main character Diana facing her Obsessive Comp...
Even though I found myself interested and curious how the story would evolve while I was reading it, I found it potentially triggering for people with OCD. I didn't love that it showed the side of OCD that is already portrayed in the mainstream (i.e. hand washing and cleaning compulsions) because there are so many more facets of OCD that aren't often talked about. Despite that, I kept wanting to know what was going to happen so there was something about the story that kept my interest. I didn't
This is a’thin’ read. A steady stream of three thoughts of consciousness with a cast of supporting characters. A unique comment on ‘the essence of the unborn’ and view of those thoughts that imprison
This book was chaotic to me. The story line was interesting, but the characters never really developed entirely. I didn't care for the chapters written in baby Stella's point of view.
The story of Little Beauties takes on the perspective of three different narrators. You first get to see, Diana McBride, the main character who is a thirty four year old woman with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Her specific curse is constant washing and extreme germ phobia. At the point you enter her life, her husband, Tim, has just left her, her alcoholic mother, Gloria, continues to criticize her every action, and she is intent on leaving her fourteenth job which she generally loves. You next...
Three Different PerspectivesLittle Beauties by Kim AddonizioSimon & Schuster, 2006During a time when teenage pregnancy and OCD are issues faced by many in American, Addonizio writes a story that addresses them both. Throughout the book the point of view switches between three characters, and the reader gets something different from each one. Diana McBride, a woman in her thirties with OCD, Jamie Alvarez, the pregnant teenager, and Jamie’s unborn child named Stella. While it is interesting to get...